Press Releases

Oct 6 2017

This week, Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Tom Cotton (R-AK) introduced the Veteran Apprenticeship and Labor Opportunity Reform (VALOR) Act, legislation that would increase access to apprenticeship-training programs for military veterans. Specifically, it would streamline the certification process for non-federal apprenticeship programs based in more than one state.

“Hiring veterans in the private sector should be as easy as possible, and Congress needs to do its part to increase opportunities for veterans in our workforce,” said Senator Tillis. “It is unnecessary to force businesses to register in every state of operation, and the VALOR Act is commonsense legislation that will reduce this burdensome requirement so apprenticeship programs will be more accessible to veterans.”

“To make employers register their apprenticeship programs in every single state they operate in is a needlessly burdensome requirement. It also has the perverse effect of making it harder to hire veterans,” said Senator Cotton. “This legislation will cut through the red tape and help put more veterans in apprenticeship programs.”

BackgroundUnder current law non-federal apprenticeship training programs located in multiple states have to register with each state approval agency individually, subjecting them to mountains of paperwork and multiple burdensome review processes. In response, employers have decided to limit their programs to a smaller number of states and, as a result, hire fewer veterans. The VALOR Act would amend current law to allow for a single, more streamlined approval process.